Fantastic Day, Busy Night

I would not change a thing about my 2nd period class! It all worked well.

I guest taught a chemistry class since the teacher was out for the morning - it was fun to see another class and control other students. For me, they were very well behaved and pretty attentive. After that, I went to my classroom to set up for the balloon-pop surprise and it was a hit. I got exactly the result I would have liked.

I am surprised, though, at how little the kids know about mental health -- I thought they would have encountered depression as a topic in health class or seen movies with schizophrenia. Nope - when I asked them to name a mental illness, all I got was ADD, which I allowed, even though there is a sizable academic and medical debate about ADHD/ADD diagnoses.

I'm looking forward to their homework assignments and tomorrow's class. Thanks, National Institute of Health's Curric. Supplements for middle school. I pretty much lifted the whole lesson and it was fantastic.

My 4th period class, normally 6 was only three so that changed the dynamic. Much slower and distracted by neurological disorders (explaining the difference between mental illness and neurodegenerative illnesses is actually very hard!).

This evening, I have to to/ am doing: evaluation journals (narrative report cards) for my kids, finishing my lesson plans for next week (language learning, sleep, and memory), designing a final project for our class, planning tomorrow's lesson, and writing up a report about Science Department day.

My run, which I was - for the first time - looking forward to, was spoiled by construction all along my path, so I got to explore campus on new routes. I discovered the scenic side of UM and several nicely lit fountains. New high milage tonight, too.

Hope tomorrow is another good day!!

Sorry about the formatting...

I have to catch my ride and I'll fix it this evening. But, that is what they look like...

Wish me luck today!

Mental Illness - Example Lesson Plan

If you're interested in a) what I'm teaching or b) the template we have to use to create LPs, here's what today's looks like.

Here's to hoping it goes a lot better than yesterday!

Subject	Introduction to Mental Illness
Date	July 18 / Week 5 / Day 3
Lesson Objectives	Students will be able to: Think critically to make connections between evidence/experience and logical explanations
Lesson Procedure	Do Now (3-4 minutes): - Students complete “Find the mistakes” worksheet, listing errors in lab behavior http://science.education.nih.gov/supplements/nih5/Mental/guide/nih_mental_masters.pdf Hook: In a quiet, focused moment, I will pop a balloon in the back of the room to elicit surprise, apprehension, startle responses for the students. Direct Instruction (15 minutes): - Students give responses to the balloon-pop and they are written on the board (Daily Scribe). - We will try to determine categories for the words to fall into (Behaviors/Actions, Emotions/Feelings, or Thoughts). I can propose words if necessary – “did anyone jump at the sound?” - Behaviors: jump, scream, yell, laugh - Feelings: scared, nervous, anxious, afraid - Thoughts: curious, wondered, concentrated - What regulates all these responses – actions, emotions, and thoughts? [the brain!] - Determining short-term and long-term effects: “Consider your feelings now; are you still scared or jumpy or nervous?” [no… we feel fine now] - What sort of things could result in long-term changes in the brain? [learning, drugs, mental illness] - Define mental illness: A mental illness if a health condition that changes a person’s thinking, feeling, or behavior (or all three) and that causes the person distress and difficulty in functioning Guided Practice (10 minutes) - Mental Illness worksheet, with partner http://science.education.nih.gov/supplements/nih5/Mental/guide/nih_mental_masters.pdf Independent Practice (7 minutes) / Homework * Put last night’s homework and put it on your desk; I will collect it * Write 7 questions you would ask a patient with a mental illness to learn more about their condition (possibly, we could have a short skit about these to present at ASM?) Closing (3 minutes) - Exit ticket: summarize the main ideas of this lesson to turn in (PUT YOUR NAME ON IT!)

So today, my lesson totally flopped.

Certainly, ethical debates are more commonly found in college (as is neurosciene), but I thought my middle school kids could have an intelligent discussion err, could have a discussion about animal testing in science.

Apparently not.

That's about all there is to say - it didn't work. I expected at least a "aw, I don't want my cat to get hurt. I don't like animal testing" or a "lots of medicines come from animals - that's good." \

I had high hopes for making a poster and presentation about the kids' ideas for our final project, but now I just want to bury this and move on. Any ideas for next topics? Mental health? Language learning? Hmm.

Who are you, anonymous commenter??

To the person who commented on my Key Biscayne entry about the sussurations of the sea - can you email me and tell me which of my readers you are? I can't tell and it's killing me!

In other news, today's Jeopardy Review went very well and I was proud to see what my kids remembered!

Tuesday we start our mini-unit on the ethics debate surrounding animal testing in science. It should be a departure from the rest of the course and I hope to have some good discussion and push the boundaries for a few of the kids, and it will culminate with a giant poster summarizing the PRO and CON arguments, to be part of the display from my department at Celebration (end of the summer graduation).

More later... (Thanks for letting me talk so long on the phone tonight!)

Relaxed Sunday

Brunch with a friend - I wanted real breakfast food, do we went to Denny's. Always an experience, but tasty and inexpensive.

Relaxed all afternoon, reading, watching John Stewart video clips and facebooking. It's so nice to be able to fritter away half a day and be okay, wh'daya say!

Spent the evening at the Shops at Sunset, a " poppin' " outdoor mall: made some cute sale purchases and had a great dinner at Panera Bakery.

Back to work on Neuroscience Jeopardy questions now. Later this week, we'll have a debate about the ethics of animal research, especially brain studies.

Key Biscayne and partying with students

After a leisurely morning, we hit the beach at Key Biscayne - an hour bus (including transfer) away, but so relaxing. The water was at least 80 degrees (no joke!) and we grabbed a beautiful spot under the fronds of a low palm tree. The sand was very flat and we could walk very far out without the water coming above our waist. The very slight waves from faraway boats lightly massaged our shoulders as the sussurations of wind in the palms calmed us on the shore.















We returned in the evening, enjoying a dusk ride home. One of the families in our program hosted a Bastille Day (Jul 14) party that all the Staff were invited to. We expected an adult gathering, but upon opening the door to a strobe light, Top 40 music, and middle schoolers, we realized we were in for something a bit different. Wine, cheese, proper conversation and fraternity were what we anticipated, but instead, we got a cross-generational dance party. The catered food was fantastic (fresh fruit!), the music tolerable, and the company fun. The "Hey Miss Holly!" after 15 seconds threw me off guard, but I realized there were a handful of 6th graders, some of the high school volunteers, a group of Teachers, as well as many chaperones/family friends. Hugely bizarre and awkward at first, but then we adapted (we call ourselves Teachers, after all!) We had a spastic but fun impromptu dance party in the car (windows down, loud music blarring, dancing within the confines of a seatbelt).